Nagi no Asukara episodes 12 + 13: Ofunehiki

Together at sea, Hikari and his friends talk and have fun together as they prepare for the Ofunehiki. In the end, they are at school when Kaname confronts Hikari into confessing to Manaka. This causes the confessed to run away, only to get back to Tsumugu and to get comforted by him. Meanwhile, Hikari and Chisaki have a heart to heart conversation which shows their maturity. The next day, the Ofunehiki celebration occurs, and the Sea God decides to take Akari for real, causing many of the other friends to fall into the water as well. In the end, Akari is saved, but Manaka has been taken away by the Sea God while Hikari and Kaname have gone missing.

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Impression

…Holy shit. Look, I knew something big would prevent Manaka from confessing to Hikari, but that was a lot more than I expected. I certainly didn’t think the Ofunehiki celebration would go this well, and that Akari would almost get taken away by the sea God. Fortunately, Manaka was there… Or was that an unfortunate thing? Apparently she is now gone forever, taken away herself. I don’t know what happened to Hikari, but if he were to come back to the surface after all this, the love problems would become completely impossible to solve unless someone turned gay or unless Manaka came back. Somehow, I feel like the latter is a lot more plausible… But, that depends on whether Hikari comes back or not; he might have gone on a search for the girl he loves.

As the conclusion of Arc 1, I can only say that episode 13 was played out beautifully. Not only did it bring together all the mini-stories since the beginning of the story, it also provided a strong, dramatic ending and foreshadowed a lot of what was going to happen in the next arc.

First of all, the Ofunehiki celebration was quite impressive; what with the flags and the lights and the singing, the animation and soundtrack provided for the scene was very well done, and I actually felt the solemnity of it all instead of the childish ceremony I thought it would be. Once again, there was a strong theme of union between the sea and the land, and just like I expected, the ceremony was pretty much the epitome of this union, with Akari as the center of it all. I could feel that Akari herself suddenly had more importance to the show; this episode was the last convincing argument that Akari’s arcs were far from useless side stories which barely involved our main characters, and moved her to the protagonist stage.

Not only did we get this feeling, but when things started turning sour, symbolism and foreshadowing decided to join the fray, especially between Chisaki and both her love interests. When Kaname helped Chisaki save Tsumugu, we could see him giving up on Chisaki altogether and even supporting Tsumugu for their relationship. The giving up factor was even more emphasized when he fell off the boat, leaving the other two together while he fell in the water. I’d say that this, combined with the disappearance of Hikari and Manaka, pretty much convinced me that this wasn’t going to turn into a NTR after all. However the next arc plays out, it’s almost a certainty that, at least, Chisaki and Tsumugu will end up together, as the love slowly builds between them.

It seems pretty certain that the show will switch the main character focus for at least one episode; with Hikari, Manaka and Kaname gone, Chisaki is the most important character left to fulfill that role temporarily, although the preview seems to include Miuna a bit as well. I’ll admit that having Chisaki left alone for a main character with Tsumugu leaves me completely hyped; her character development is sure to skyrocket even more in that situation. Apart from this, I honestly have no idea what could happen in the next few episodes; the people from the sea will most likely come back eventually, but what could happen meanwhile, or what Hikari and the others could be doing at sea, is something which I could theorize for ages without finding the answer; there isn’t enough information for me to figure it out.